Actually, the year-based numbering scheme makes a certain amount of sense, for several reasons. With this scheme, there is absolutely no doubt about hoe old a product is, and it is easy to identify features and additions. Which is easier, really-- Linux 2.1.134pl6 or Linux95?:) Seriously, though--in many ways it helps to more accurately identify product versions that other systems.
On the other hand, I supported Windows 95 and Office 97 for a long time, and it gets very frustrating when the average user says: "I have Windows 97 on their machine. How do I print a label?". "Do you mean Windows 98, or Office 97?" Of course they have no idea. Maybe the only good way is to giove every product a completely different name, with no numbers attached at all. "I'm using Super Death Office From Hell for Windows In The Red Box. How do I print a label?"
darren
Not a Linux problem: a distrobution problem
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Linux Lite?
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· Score: 1
This is not uniquely a Linux problem. Solaris, Irix, FreeBSD, etc come with a million services enabled by default. OpenBSD has it right--disable *everything*, and then turn things on specifically. The people who don't know what httpd and bind are don't need to run them. It's a simple as that. The people who do know what they are know not only if they need them, but how to turn them on or off.
RedHat has a good start but it could be taken further--the installation does ask for a server or workstation setup. What it should do is make you specify "server" as part of the Expert setup--a parameter you pass to it when you begin the installation.
The author raises a very important point--as "the masses" are becoming more and more interested in Linux, and it is becoming increasingly less rare for people to be using it, it behooves the distributors to create distributions that are secure by default. In fact, I can think of no reason not to create secure distributions under any circumstances. Especially with the newer, graphical control panel-type administration tools, where turning services on and off (like sendmail and http) is becoming point-and-drool easy.
Is there any reason to have login, exec, rsh, wall, httpd, finger, and bind on the average workstation, even one connected to a network? Not really. Probably not at all; in these days of NIS and NFS, many services need only run on one centralized server.
This seems like a lot of over-simplification. There is a much simpler solution to the question of why "geeks" are socially awkward--they spend more time without the company of other human beings. Does anyone know a "geek" who is completely well-adjusted? Or anyone who is, for that matter? We "geeks" have probably spent more time in front of a computer, or studying physics, or electronics, or whatever than others ("jocks", or just "regular folk").
And, let's face it--warning! more over-simplification--excelling at something mundane like sports or human interaction is, in many ways, a much simpler task that becomming an excellent programmer or electrical engineer. These things are more "natural" for people; out bodies are engineered for these things. Excelling at other, more intellectual endeavors, require more time and effort.
Is there anyone else who finds this tactic of using a children's character to explain the V-Chip insulting? I'm sure the content of the ad will be extremely dumbed-down--"Now press this button for no sex, then press this button for no violence"--kind of like the MacOS 'balloonhelp' for the V-Chip (not (really) a flame--I comparing the operating isntructions).
As a soon-to-father (any day now!) I resent having to have children's characters teach me how to use the V-Chip, as well as that the government thinks I do. Is this commentary on what the government thinks of the nation's intelligence, in general? Or is it true that parents need this sort of intellect-belittling hand-holding?
BTW, am I the only one who feels that children need to be taught what is approprate to watch through caring and good parenting, and not through technological mandates, or am I in the minority here?
The FreeBSD project, and many other projects, keeps all their source code available from a CVS server. CVS is a source code control system, and a CVS server can be made available over the Internet. A FreeBSD user can log into a CVS server and download the source code or a patch or whatever is needed for a particular component (including the kernel).
As slashdot gets more and more sections, perhaps a revamping of the front page is in order. Other than just the latest articles, perhaps the front page should be sectioned off, so that more than one section can be displayed at once. Or maybe give the user the option to have the latest of chosen sections piled in together on the front page, still listed chronologically.
A few other comments have mentioned a YRO slashbox--there's already one for older slashdot articles, book reviews, Geeks in Space, and the like, so I'm sure Rob has this slashbox planned.
Is YRO going to attempt to cover the topic internationally, or concentrate on the US? Perhaps when a story comes in, extra effort should be made to find how the subject relates to online rights in other countries.
One of the things a Mac has going for it, as a web server platform, is that it is not multiuser. Neither is NT, really, but Microsoft has added enough multiuser features to it to make it exploitable (install IIS and you get a dozen services by default, like echo, time, chargen, and other services). With a Mac, there is none of that. Run a web server without CGI access (put a few CGI scripts on another machine running a Mac-native scripting language/environment like Frontier) and you have a near unexploitable machine. One that is of limited functionality, but why should a web server do dozens of things? Most sites are not like slashdot, and use 99+% static content.
With the new G3 and G4 (I haven't used a G4 but the G3's are very fast) processors, Macs are becoming fast machines. Would I run a web server on a 7200? No thank you. Not even on one running NetBSD or Linux, the machine just doesn't have the capacity. But MacOS 8.6 (or whatever) on a G3 or G4, running a dedicated web server program could potentially be a great idea.
I just downloaded and installed GIMP for Win32 (9,244,720 bytes), and I've been having some problems with it. It's not finished yet--don't shrink-wrap it yet! I'm not sure if the problems are GIMP problems or GTK problems or personal problems (although it runs wonderfully on the RedHat incarnation of this machine).
More specifically, the problem I'm having is it won't load past the "extension_script_fu" phase of startup (it did once, crashed, and now I have to use the Task Manager to end the task). Any ideas?
I can't help but feel that this is an extension of the typical American refusal to take responsibility for their actions. The media is not to blame--if anyone is to blame, it is the parents. A child that has been taught the difference between what is appropriate and what is not appropriate--or at least given the proper intellectual tools to make the distinction--should not have these problems.
In the last three months since the birth of my nephew, and as the birth of my own son comes nearer, I have realized something very important--children come out knowing nothing. They learn exactly what you teach them. Yes, children are extremely impressionable. Heck, most adults are very impressionable. But if you teach them early on how to make responsible judgements and to take responsibility for their actions, they can be taught the difference between fantasy (what they see on television) and reality (how they should treat people, what is appropriate).
Of course a two year old cannot make informed decisions about what to watch on television--but then again, a two year old should not be making the important decisions about her life on her own, now should she?
It is about time that people stop complaining about the Evil Internet and Terrible Televison and start teaching their children to make responsible choices. More censorship is not the answer--less censorship is the answer. Informed decisions can only be made when the decider has all the available information. If you think pornography is wrong, teach your children why you think that, don't blindly deny access to it. If you have strong political beliefs, explain them to your children, and make them understand, rather than just ranting and raving (Dad, are you listening?). Children are young, but they are people, and can be reasoned with--if you've taught them how.
Sorry about the semi-rant--I've been having this discussion with friends and family for a few months.
There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it. -- Frank Zappa
This is interesting, although not new (I once read someone was porting the Linux kernel to run on both a Laser Jet III and Furby--probably neither is true, but both are interesting).
It seems fairly obvious, though, once you learn a bit about what it takes to create an operating system, that it's easier to borrow ideas and--more importantly--implementations from somewhere else that to create them yourself from scratch. It seems only logical that the people who are creating embedded systems are better off using existing solutions to existing problems (provided they solve those problems) rather than create new solutions. So, articles like this are in some sense old news--they are telling us something we already know will happen, since, unlike most other kernels, the source code is entirely and freely available for perusal and borrowing.
As far as Linux being the flavor of the month: Of course it is. At any given time the media has to have its darlings. But that doesn't change the fact that the Linux kernel is stable, has been in production for years, and has a long history of reliability behind it. What the last 6 months of media attention does buy for Linux is a mainstream acceptability which would otherwise have been very difficult to come by. How would people in corporate IT shops have come to find out about this "wonderful new operating system" if not from the media? This is a good thing--even if the media is over-hyping linux to the point where you roll your eyes at "Yet Another Linux Cover Article" on Generic Computer Users magazine.
Seriously, though--a year ago, everyone that I knew who had heard of Linux was in academia. My old comrades from CS 101 were studying the Linux kernel years before I entered the corporate marketplace. When I set up my first Linux box here (November '97) nobody knew what they heck I was doing--"Hey, that's a weird DOS prompt"--and nobody was interested.
The huge exposure is a good thing, of course; let the "flavor of the month" thing run its course, and in the end, the people who really Got It will still be using it, and the ones who latched on to the Linux Fad will meander on to the Next Big Thing (maybe Java again?).
If people are so concerned about losing advertising revenue, then perhaps they should look into a way of fighting the "perpetrators" on their own terms--technologically. Put some anti-framing javascript in the page, or have the web server check the HTTP_REFERER variable to ensure that the pages are being snagged from their own links. Or--here's a novel idea--put the advertising in the HTML. A pretty simple ad serving CGI would handle rotation of ads very simply. That way, when people link to your internal page, they are getting one of your ads at the top of the page. Of course, this breaks down when people start running all their pages through an ad-f iltering proxy server or something similar...:)
I'm sick of people whining about how people are stealing their content. Get over it, or get into a different business. This is one of the prices of doing business on the web.
Unfortunately, there are no really good ways to block spam, and the better ones require that you have access either to your main mail server or another mail server that can act as an intermediate. I'll assume that you don't have access to the mail server.
procmail is by far the best way to filter your mail. You mentioned that procmail wasn't adequate; I would respond by saying: Recheck your procmail config. procmail is infinitely configurable by using regular expressionss and having procmail run an external script or program for each incoming message. If you know Perl and can download the Net::SMTP module, have procmail fire a Perl script which contacts the originating mail server and attempts to verify the sender's address through VRFY or EXPN. This won't always work, however, because some (*&$%#^) mail servers aren't running a real MTA (sendmail, qmail, smail, etc) or are behind a firewall.
Someone mentioned this already, and it's a good idea. Everything that doesn't have your specific email address in the To: or Cc: fields is suspect, except for mailing lists to which you may belong. Have procmail file those away in a separate folder for manual checking. This should be the default action; have procmail look first for mail from specific people, then perform your other checks (specific mailing lists, etc), then check for your address in the To: field, then everything else which doesn't match one of those criteria is suspect.
As a final resort, you can rely on your MUA to filter messages as well. Some people like to do all the filtering at the MUA level; I'm not so sure I'm fully comfortable with this, because you are limited to the filters (or at least the filter-types) that your MUA has predefined. With procmail, you have access to regular expressions and can call external programs on your email messages, and I've never seen a MUA that allows you to do that. Perhaps sorting messages from particular users can be done in the MUA, after procmail flushes the ones that are not directly addressed to you. As an aside, the Netscape mail client lets you write mail filters in JavaScript, which has regular expression support, although it's not as intuitive or as powerful as the regexp support in, say, Perl.
What do I do? I use a combination of fetchmail, procmail, and some custom Perl scripts to sort my mail. By the time I get to it with my MUA ( mutt rules), it has already been cleaned out quite a bit. I have a list of past spammers that gets checked each time a new message comes in from someone my scripts don't recognize or isn't addressed directly to me. It's a bit of work to set up at first, but it's easier in the long run. One thing I've been toying with is creating a database of good and bad addresses, which I can call through Perl scripts from the server to which my mail actually goes (I have several accounts, through school, work, and my ISP). The scripts, and procmail, would run on the individual server, contacting my workstation, which would hold the database (a perl-based server, running on some random port, with a specialized interface to the database).
By the way, if you do have access to a mail server, get the latest version of sendmail, which includes support for the Realtime Blackhole List (which someone already mentioned). It can reject mail based on the sender's originating IP address or domain, if they are known spammers. Very useful, although it can be a resource drain if you get a lot of mail or run a high volume mail server. I have a linux box on my desk which is my primary mail server, and I have all my email forwarded to that machine, which then checks the domains.
This is only for losers! It says so on the site!
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Beaming Money
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Didn't anyone else notice the little box at the bottom of the front page..."Use your palm or Windows CE to pay your friends." They're obviously aiming this product at those of us who have to purchase our friends affections.
There are solutions. Are the users aware of the migration, or is this going to be a stealth migration?
We did something similar (smaller scale) recently. We used a simple sed script that reset everyone's password to something simple and generic (used passwd to change one password to, say, "Okj*ij83rR", on the new machine and then copied the resulting gibbering into each password field). We then alerted each user individually (sealed envelope marked "confidential") informing them of their new "randomly generated password", and set the passwords to expire using the shadow passwd file. Next time each user logged in, they had to change their password to something of their own devising. Insecure, since everyone had the same interim password, but everyone thought the password had been randomly generated for them, so it wasn't that bad.
As an aside, someone mentioned that Linux and Solaris used difference versions of the crypt system call. Is this true? I was under the impression that they used the same algorithm. If they do use the same algorithm, you should be able to copy the passwd and shadow files directly (or at least use a simpler sed script if you have to reorder the entries). If they are different, and you can find out the algorithm Solaris uses, you can modify the Linux version to be identical to the Solaris version.
Also, we used the migration as an excuse to get people to change their passwords (we didn't have a password policy expiration then).
In a few years, will there really be much difference between a "game machine" and a "home" computer?
I think in the near future, a game console will be indistinguishable from a personal computer. Perhaps imperceptably at first, but eventually the processors in game consoles will become powerful enough (with fast chips becoming so cheap) that to not add the extra features would be more difficult (features such as encryption engines, graphics capabilites built into the chip, perhaps wireless network protocol support).
In about a year, using your N256 will entail:
checking your email
getting regular updates on Nintendo stock (computing how much better it is doing than Sega stock)
computing the total value of your Nintendo stock
Purchasing more stock on your behalf when the price drops low enough
uploading your amazing new high score to the worldwide Zelda 256 server (www.zelda.org)
all transmissions will be encrypted and signed, of course.
...all while playing a first person action game with real-time movie-quality graphics.
For most forms of printed information (letters, information, brochures, etc), email (or electronic messaging in general) is more than sufficient. Once digital signatures become standard (and more common), this method will suffice for transmissions that require confidence. I would opine that most Americans are not comfortable enough with email to trust it to the exclusion of the USPS; the USPS has been around for a long time, while email has only been around for about 30 years (but ask a kid nowadays--they all think email started in the 80's). There are confidence issues, reliability issues (real and imagined), and technological issues.
A more interesting--although not completely related--question is this: When are digital signatures going to become standard?
There were rumors that the US government wanted to "issue" email addresses to babies at birth, along with social security numbers. While issuing email addresses is technologically problematic (now there's a server I don't want to maintain), issuing a digital certificate at birth is not, since prime pieces of information (e.g., name and SSN) are present shortly after birth. Perhaps this is the "number of the beast" of which Revelations warns us...
Very interesting--there's a couple of very important questions in there.
That this sort of a thing can be used to right wrongs that man has perpetrated in the past, such as hunting an animal to extinction, definitely sounds like playing God. We already have the power to make a species extinct; should we have the power to bring a species back?
Assuming it is even possible. Just because we can create a Huia bird physically--cloning the DNA and have one grow to maturity--is a totally different question than whether we can create one that can function in the wild. Since there are no Huia birds left in the wild, how would the cloned bird develop its instincts? How would it mate? How much of these things are ingrained in DNA,and how many of these things to animals develop by watching and imitating other animals of the same species? (basic nature vs. nurture question)
Though there may be nothing wrong with "playing God," it raises some practical questions. What if the Huia bird cannot function without an established "Huia culture" (or whatever--I'm sure there's a technical term for what I mean) from which to learn? Is the Huia bird going to go down in history as the species we caused to go extinct twice? Or will it be the first of a class of "welfare species", that the various governments involved will have to support through specialized personnel and habitats (e.g., zoos and preserves)?
This definitely has interesting possibilities, whatever the ramifications of them are.
That was one of my first concerns when I first installed Linux as well. I tried it first without a swap partition (Caldera 1.1 mentioned that a swap partition "might be necessary with a low amount of RAM"), since I figured I would be OK without it, and the resulting machine wouldn't run. I had to repartition and reinstall a few times to get it right. Good pratice.:)
My current Linux machine has 192 M of RAM, and I've gotten away with using one single swap partition of the max size (127 M). I've never had a memory problem, and I have a tendency to run a lot of server stuff (for example, an LDAP server, a mod_perl copy of Apache for development, a mod_roaming copy of Apache to host my department's Netscape profiles, MySQL, and several other custom services), not to mention the many programs I use in the foreground at any given time (several copies of Netscape, several xterms (some running Emacs!), same-gnome, Gnumeric, etc).
With 128 M of RAM, you probably won't use a swap partition too much, so one should be sufficient. A swap partition is really most essential on low RAM machines (16 M or less) running X or serving a lot of users.
I say put it as the only partition on a fast disk (maybe a small dedicated SCSI drive... you must a few old ones lying around).
There are two Apache/Java integration projects that I know about; one was already mentioned, the Jakarta project (jakarta.apache.org), "dedicated to providing a high quality, world class 100% Pure Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages implementation", and the Java Apache project (java.apache.org), which has a JVM built in to the Apache daemon, and inlcudes JSSI and full servlet support.
Though I haven't personally used either of these creations, I do know people who have had great success with the Java Apache modules. This project includes mod_java (similar in function to mod_perl or mod_php), client applications, and a document publishing framework as well as server extensions, so for a large scale solution, this may be worth checking out.
Also, I believe, the Java Apache project is more mature than the Jakarta project (although I may be mistaken about this).
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, the year-based numbering scheme makes a certain amount of sense, for several reasons. With this scheme, there is absolutely no doubt about hoe old a product is, and it is easy to identify features and additions. Which is easier, really-- Linux 2.1.134pl6 or Linux95? :) Seriously, though--in many ways it helps to more accurately identify product versions that other systems.
On the other hand, I supported Windows 95 and Office 97 for a long time, and it gets very frustrating when the average user says: "I have Windows 97 on their machine. How do I print a label?". "Do you mean Windows 98, or Office 97?" Of course they have no idea. Maybe the only good way is to giove every product a completely different name, with no numbers attached at all. "I'm using Super Death Office From Hell for Windows In The Red Box. How do I print a label?"
darren
This is not uniquely a Linux problem. Solaris, Irix, FreeBSD, etc come with a million services enabled by default. OpenBSD has it right--disable *everything*, and then turn things on specifically. The people who don't know what httpd and bind are don't need to run them. It's a simple as that. The people who do know what they are know not only if they need them, but how to turn them on or off.
RedHat has a good start but it could be taken further--the installation does ask for a server or workstation setup. What it should do is make you specify "server" as part of the Expert setup--a parameter you pass to it when you begin the installation.
The author raises a very important point--as "the masses" are becoming more and more interested in Linux, and it is becoming increasingly less rare for people to be using it, it behooves the distributors to create distributions that are secure by default. In fact, I can think of no reason not to create secure distributions under any circumstances. Especially with the newer, graphical control panel-type administration tools, where turning services on and off (like sendmail and http) is becoming point-and-drool easy.
Is there any reason to have login, exec, rsh, wall, httpd, finger, and bind on the average workstation, even one connected to a network? Not really. Probably not at all; in these days of NIS and NFS, many services need only run on one centralized server.
darren
This seems like a lot of over-simplification. There is a much simpler solution to the question of why "geeks" are socially awkward--they spend more time without the company of other human beings. Does anyone know a "geek" who is completely well-adjusted? Or anyone who is, for that matter? We "geeks" have probably spent more time in front of a computer, or studying physics, or electronics, or whatever than others ("jocks", or just "regular folk").
And, let's face it--warning! more over-simplification--excelling at something mundane like sports or human interaction is, in many ways, a much simpler task that becomming an excellent programmer or electrical engineer. These things are more "natural" for people; out bodies are engineered for these things. Excelling at other, more intellectual endeavors, require more time and effort.
Is there anyone else who finds this tactic of using a children's character to explain the V-Chip insulting? I'm sure the content of the ad will be extremely dumbed-down--"Now press this button for no sex, then press this button for no violence"--kind of like the MacOS 'balloonhelp' for the V-Chip (not (really) a flame--I comparing the operating isntructions).
As a soon-to-father (any day now!) I resent having to have children's characters teach me how to use the V-Chip, as well as that the government thinks I do. Is this commentary on what the government thinks of the nation's intelligence, in general? Or is it true that parents need this sort of intellect-belittling hand-holding?
BTW, am I the only one who feels that children need to be taught what is approprate to watch through caring and good parenting, and not through technological mandates, or am I in the minority here?
darren
The FreeBSD project, and many other projects, keeps all their source code available from a CVS server. CVS is a source code control system, and a CVS server can be made available over the Internet. A FreeBSD user can log into a CVS server and download the source code or a patch or whatever is needed for a particular component (including the kernel).
SysAdmin Magazine did an article on FreeBSD and CVS in the September 1999 issue. They also ran an article in June 1999 called 'The Linux Kernel: A Case Study for CVS', which unfortunately is not available online.
A company called Cyclic does commercial support for CVS, and has some information available online.
darren
This is a great idea.
darren
One of the things a Mac has going for it, as a web server platform, is that it is not multiuser. Neither is NT, really, but Microsoft has added enough multiuser features to it to make it exploitable (install IIS and you get a dozen services by default, like echo, time, chargen, and other services). With a Mac, there is none of that. Run a web server without CGI access (put a few CGI scripts on another machine running a Mac-native scripting language/environment like Frontier) and you have a near unexploitable machine. One that is of limited functionality, but why should a web server do dozens of things? Most sites are not like slashdot, and use 99+% static content.
With the new G3 and G4 (I haven't used a G4 but the G3's are very fast) processors, Macs are becoming fast machines. Would I run a web server on a 7200? No thank you. Not even on one running NetBSD or Linux, the machine just doesn't have the capacity. But MacOS 8.6 (or whatever) on a G3 or G4, running a dedicated web server program could potentially be a great idea.
darren
I just downloaded and installed GIMP for Win32 (9,244,720 bytes), and I've been having some problems with it. It's not finished yet--don't shrink-wrap it yet! I'm not sure if the problems are GIMP problems or GTK problems or personal problems (although it runs wonderfully on the RedHat incarnation of this machine).
More specifically, the problem I'm having is it won't load past the "extension_script_fu" phase of startup (it did once, crashed, and now I have to use the Task Manager to end the task). Any ideas?
darren
I can't help but feel that this is an extension of the typical American refusal to take responsibility for their actions. The media is not to blame--if anyone is to blame, it is the parents. A child that has been taught the difference between what is appropriate and what is not appropriate--or at least given the proper intellectual tools to make the distinction--should not have these problems.
In the last three months since the birth of my nephew, and as the birth of my own son comes nearer, I have realized something very important--children come out knowing nothing. They learn exactly what you teach them. Yes, children are extremely impressionable. Heck, most adults are very impressionable. But if you teach them early on how to make responsible judgements and to take responsibility for their actions, they can be taught the difference between fantasy (what they see on television) and reality (how they should treat people, what is appropriate).
Of course a two year old cannot make informed decisions about what to watch on television--but then again, a two year old should not be making the important decisions about her life on her own, now should she?
It is about time that people stop complaining about the Evil Internet and Terrible Televison and start teaching their children to make responsible choices. More censorship is not the answer--less censorship is the answer. Informed decisions can only be made when the decider has all the available information. If you think pornography is wrong, teach your children why you think that, don't blindly deny access to it. If you have strong political beliefs, explain them to your children, and make them understand, rather than just ranting and raving (Dad, are you listening?). Children are young, but they are people, and can be reasoned with--if you've taught them how.
Sorry about the semi-rant--I've been having this discussion with friends and family for a few months.
There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it. -- Frank Zappa
This is interesting, although not new (I once read someone was porting the Linux kernel to run on both a Laser Jet III and Furby--probably neither is true, but both are interesting).
It seems fairly obvious, though, once you learn a bit about what it takes to create an operating system, that it's easier to borrow ideas and--more importantly--implementations from somewhere else that to create them yourself from scratch. It seems only logical that the people who are creating embedded systems are better off using existing solutions to existing problems (provided they solve those problems) rather than create new solutions. So, articles like this are in some sense old news--they are telling us something we already know will happen, since, unlike most other kernels, the source code is entirely and freely available for perusal and borrowing.
As far as Linux being the flavor of the month: Of course it is. At any given time the media has to have its darlings. But that doesn't change the fact that the Linux kernel is stable, has been in production for years, and has a long history of reliability behind it. What the last 6 months of media attention does buy for Linux is a mainstream acceptability which would otherwise have been very difficult to come by. How would people in corporate IT shops have come to find out about this "wonderful new operating system" if not from the media? This is a good thing--even if the media is over-hyping linux to the point where you roll your eyes at "Yet Another Linux Cover Article" on Generic Computer Users magazine.
Seriously, though--a year ago, everyone that I knew who had heard of Linux was in academia. My old comrades from CS 101 were studying the Linux kernel years before I entered the corporate marketplace. When I set up my first Linux box here (November '97) nobody knew what they heck I was doing--"Hey, that's a weird DOS prompt"--and nobody was interested.
The huge exposure is a good thing, of course; let the "flavor of the month" thing run its course, and in the end, the people who really Got It will still be using it, and the ones who latched on to the Linux Fad will meander on to the Next Big Thing (maybe Java again?).
darren
There's no DNS records to go along with the domain name.
If people are so concerned about losing advertising revenue, then perhaps they should look into a way of fighting the "perpetrators" on their own terms--technologically. Put some anti-framing javascript in the page, or have the web server check the HTTP_REFERER variable to ensure that the pages are being snagged from their own links. Or--here's a novel idea--put the advertising in the HTML. A pretty simple ad serving CGI would handle rotation of ads very simply. That way, when people link to your internal page, they are getting one of your ads at the top of the page. Of course, this breaks down when people start running all their pages through an ad-f iltering proxy server or something similar... :)
I'm sick of people whining about how people are stealing their content. Get over it, or get into a different business. This is one of the prices of doing business on the web.
Unfortunately, there are no really good ways to block spam, and the better ones require that you have access either to your main mail server or another mail server that can act as an intermediate. I'll assume that you don't have access to the mail server.
What do I do? I use a combination of fetchmail, procmail, and some custom Perl scripts to sort my mail. By the time I get to it with my MUA ( mutt rules), it has already been cleaned out quite a bit. I have a list of past spammers that gets checked each time a new message comes in from someone my scripts don't recognize or isn't addressed directly to me. It's a bit of work to set up at first, but it's easier in the long run. One thing I've been toying with is creating a database of good and bad addresses, which I can call through Perl scripts from the server to which my mail actually goes (I have several accounts, through school, work, and my ISP). The scripts, and procmail, would run on the individual server, contacting my workstation, which would hold the database (a perl-based server, running on some random port, with a specialized interface to the database).
By the way, if you do have access to a mail server, get the latest version of sendmail, which includes support for the Realtime Blackhole List (which someone already mentioned). It can reject mail based on the sender's originating IP address or domain, if they are known spammers. Very useful, although it can be a resource drain if you get a lot of mail or run a high volume mail server. I have a linux box on my desk which is my primary mail server, and I have all my email forwarded to that machine, which then checks the domains.
Didn't anyone else notice the little box at the bottom of the front page..."Use your palm or Windows CE to pay your friends." They're obviously aiming this product at those of us who have to purchase our friends affections.
There are solutions. Are the users aware of the migration, or is this going to be a stealth migration?
We did something similar (smaller scale) recently. We used a simple sed script that reset everyone's password to something simple and generic (used passwd to change one password to, say, "Okj*ij83rR", on the new machine and then copied the resulting gibbering into each password field). We then alerted each user individually (sealed envelope marked "confidential") informing them of their new "randomly generated password", and set the passwords to expire using the shadow passwd file. Next time each user logged in, they had to change their password to something of their own devising. Insecure, since everyone had the same interim password, but everyone thought the password had been randomly generated for them, so it wasn't that bad.
As an aside, someone mentioned that Linux and Solaris used difference versions of the crypt system call. Is this true? I was under the impression that they used the same algorithm. If they do use the same algorithm, you should be able to copy the passwd and shadow files directly (or at least use a simpler sed script if you have to reorder the entries). If they are different, and you can find out the algorithm Solaris uses, you can modify the Linux version to be identical to the Solaris version.
Also, we used the migration as an excuse to get people to change their passwords (we didn't have a password policy expiration then).
In a few years, will there really be much difference between a "game machine" and a "home" computer?
I think in the near future, a game console will be indistinguishable from a personal computer. Perhaps imperceptably at first, but eventually the processors in game consoles will become powerful enough (with fast chips becoming so cheap) that to not add the extra features would be more difficult (features such as encryption engines, graphics capabilites built into the chip, perhaps wireless network protocol support).
In about a year, using your N256 will entail:
...all while playing a first person action game with real-time movie-quality graphics.
For most forms of printed information (letters, information, brochures, etc), email (or electronic messaging in general) is more than sufficient. Once digital signatures become standard (and more common), this method will suffice for transmissions that require confidence. I would opine that most Americans are not comfortable enough with email to trust it to the exclusion of the USPS; the USPS has been around for a long time, while email has only been around for about 30 years (but ask a kid nowadays--they all think email started in the 80's). There are confidence issues, reliability issues (real and imagined), and technological issues.
A more interesting--although not completely related--question is this: When are digital signatures going to become standard?
There were rumors that the US government wanted to "issue" email addresses to babies at birth, along with social security numbers. While issuing email addresses is technologically problematic (now there's a server I don't want to maintain), issuing a digital certificate at birth is not, since prime pieces of information (e.g., name and SSN) are present shortly after birth. Perhaps this is the "number of the beast" of which Revelations warns us...
Very interesting--there's a couple of very important questions in there.
That this sort of a thing can be used to right wrongs that man has perpetrated in the past, such as hunting an animal to extinction, definitely sounds like playing God. We already have the power to make a species extinct; should we have the power to bring a species back?
Assuming it is even possible. Just because we can create a Huia bird physically--cloning the DNA and have one grow to maturity--is a totally different question than whether we can create one that can function in the wild. Since there are no Huia birds left in the wild, how would the cloned bird develop its instincts? How would it mate? How much of these things are ingrained in DNA,and how many of these things to animals develop by watching and imitating other animals of the same species? (basic nature vs. nurture question)
Though there may be nothing wrong with "playing God," it raises some practical questions. What if the Huia bird cannot function without an established "Huia culture" (or whatever--I'm sure there's a technical term for what I mean) from which to learn? Is the Huia bird going to go down in history as the species we caused to go extinct twice? Or will it be the first of a class of "welfare species", that the various governments involved will have to support through specialized personnel and habitats (e.g., zoos and preserves)?
This definitely has interesting possibilities, whatever the ramifications of them are.
That was one of my first concerns when I first installed Linux as well. I tried it first without a swap partition (Caldera 1.1 mentioned that a swap partition "might be necessary with a low amount of RAM"), since I figured I would be OK without it, and the resulting machine wouldn't run. I had to repartition and reinstall a few times to get it right. Good pratice. :)
My current Linux machine has 192 M of RAM, and I've gotten away with using one single swap partition of the max size (127 M). I've never had a memory problem, and I have a tendency to run a lot of server stuff (for example, an LDAP server, a mod_perl copy of Apache for development, a mod_roaming copy of Apache to host my department's Netscape profiles, MySQL, and several other custom services), not to mention the many programs I use in the foreground at any given time (several copies of Netscape, several xterms (some running Emacs!), same-gnome, Gnumeric, etc).
With 128 M of RAM, you probably won't use a swap partition too much, so one should be sufficient. A swap partition is really most essential on low RAM machines (16 M or less) running X or serving a lot of users.
I say put it as the only partition on a fast disk (maybe a small dedicated SCSI drive... you must a few old ones lying around).
darren
There are two Apache/Java integration projects that I know about; one was already mentioned, the Jakarta project (jakarta.apache.org), "dedicated to providing a high quality, world class 100% Pure Java Servlet and JavaServer Pages implementation", and the Java Apache project (java.apache.org), which has a JVM built in to the Apache daemon, and inlcudes JSSI and full servlet support.
Though I haven't personally used either of these creations, I do know people who have had great success with the Java Apache modules. This project includes mod_java (similar in function to mod_perl or mod_php), client applications, and a document publishing framework as well as server extensions, so for a large scale solution, this may be worth checking out.
Also, I believe, the Java Apache project is more mature than the Jakarta project (although I may be mistaken about this).
darren